Sid: Have you ever been concerned about death? Have you ever been worried about what’s it going to be like? Is there going to be pain involved? Will I enjoy this place called heaven? What about all of my loved ones? You’ve got so many questions about heaven you probably haven’t even processed it. You haven’t even thought much about it; but I have a guest who has been there. And he’s not only been there he’s very credible. He award winning medical doctor; he is Chief of Staff at the Tri-State Ashland City Medical Center in Tennessee. He’s been in family practice in an Emergency Room for over 25 years. So Dr. Reggie Anderson is in medical school and he’s become an atheist and medical school just pushed him over even further if that’s possible. Because his God is facts and not the God of the Bible. There was a horrible tragedy in his life; people that he considered like uncles and close relatives. There were actually distant relatives he spent so much time with. Were involved in one of the worst mass murders in the history of the State of Georgia, and he cried out to God “Why?” And he walked away, he blamed God. He became an atheist; but then in medical school their examining a dead body and this is in Anatomy Class, and he looks at it and Reggie as you said in your book “You looked at this woman and you said “She’s a work of art.” What did you mean by that?
Dr. Anderson: Well exactly what I said “It could not have happened by accident.” The whole idea of evolution and random things coming together to make the human being was not possible. I mean it broke way to many physical laws to get to that point. I mean she was beautiful and even though she… her spirit was no longer there. Her soul had already been taken but there her body was that was left behind for us to examine and to learn as medical students. I had no other explanation than a creative force had made this being in front of me.
Sid: So God’s working on that area of your life and then you fall in love; you’re smitten a girl by the name of Karen, but there’s a problem this Karen is sold out to Jesus. She quickly finds out that you’re not; sure she wants you to be saved but then you overhear her speaking to some of her girlfriends and she’s talking about you and she saying “Pray for Reggie because he’s an atheist and he’s a kind of like a stalker.” So did you kind of just dismiss Karen when you heard that?
Dr. Anderson: You know as a medical student I really had plenty of dates, but this was really the first woman or the first person that had challenged my life journey as an atheist.
Sid: Beyond the fact that you were smitten with her was she making any sense at that point in our life with her apologetic and her arguments?
Dr. Anderson: You know it was starting to I guess bother me as an atheist you know, I just spent time in the cadaver lab and had kind of come to a point that okay, maybe there is a God out there, but I didn’t have a personal relationship. And that was really where she was challenging me. You know I actually told her I said you know she said one of the reasons she wouldn’t date me is because I was not a Christian. And the only thing I could respond to her was that well my parents are.
Sid: That’s close; that’s in the family. (Laughing) Okay, I’m going to fast forward you now because there’s so many exciting things I mean he has prayed for so many people as they were passing from this life to the next. When you find out the experiences that he had totally demystify this thing called death or going to heaven. But July 4, 1980 it was an historic date in your life; it changed everything, everything about your life Dr. Anderson, tell me about it.
Dr. Anderson: Absolutely, well Karen had challenged me and given me a book called “Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and I took that….
Sid: You know I got that book too and I have to tell you when I read it my mind was in such a fog I mean being Jewish and having no paradigm on the Bible or anything else. You know I read a couple of pages but that was about it; but what affect did it have on you?
Dr. Anderson: Well I and he is not the easiest person to read but I sat down by myself on a camping trip by the fire and I read straight through it. It just for some reason my mind was open. Because Karen had asked me to pray one prayer before I went on this camping trip “That God if You’re real reveal Yourself to me.” And so I was open to the idea that there was a God and if He was there He would reveal Himself. So I read straight through “Mere Christianity” and my mother had sent a Bible to me when I was in college and she knew that I was struggling with religion. But she sent this Bible that I used more as a book to hold the door open than anything.
Sid: That’s better than most people’s homes they just put it on a book shelf but go ahead.
Dr. Anderson: (Laughing) But anyway I read the Gospel of John because that had been recommended as a good starting point. And so as soon as I closed the Bible that evening I fell asleep and I fell into a deep deep dream. And in that dream Jesus came to me and He spoke He said “Reggie, why are you running from me, your friends are here with me in paradise and I turned and I in my dream I could clearly see Jimmy and Jerry and their entire family.
Sid: This was the family that was involved in the mass murder and rape, go ahead.
Dr. Anderson: And they were all happy and glowing and healed and wanted to be there and did not want to come back here to earth. I knew that’s where I wanted to go and to be with Jesus. He said to me in the next sentence “Reggie if you’ll stop running and turn and follow Me, and listen to My words all of what I will tell you will come true.” And then He began to tell me that I would marry this young lady who wouldn’t even go out with me because an atheist.
Sid: And almost a stalker, but go ahead. (Laughing)
Dr. Anderson: Exactly, that I would have 4 children and that I would practice medicine in rural Tennessee. And so I woke up from this mystifying dream and I knew that my life had changed, that my spiritual chemistry had turned 180 degrees that I was a new man.
Sid: What about the big thing that caused you to become an atheist and that was the mass murder of your close friends that you’d spent so much time with? What were your thought about that?
Dr. Anderson: Well I could clearly see them and I knew that they were happier where they were now then where they were then. And I knew that everything had come to pass was for a reason. And that God had brought this entire family to His bosom quicker through this tragic event and there were no more questions about why it happened and where was God? God was right there in the midst of it and they did not want to come back to earth; they wanted to stay there in paradise and I knew that at that moment that was the answer.
Sid: And in your book you say that “When you get to heaven you’ll have all the answers for why.” In the mean time you saw the fruit of what their life was like and so why should you be grieving now.
Dr. Anderson: Right, exactly I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to but you know God has asked me to be here on earth to continue to minister to others and try to bring more into the fold and into the family…
Sid: You know I had a close friend that was a doctor that’s now in heaven and his name was Dr. Richard Eby and he spent many, many hours in heaven which totally changed his life also. And I wrote a book called “Heaven is Beyond Your Wildest Expectations” in which I interviewed some of the best witnesses I’ve ever found that have gone to heaven and to come back to report about it. And two of them were very close friends of mine. But I’ll tell you something “Your book is so credible that if someone is an atheist I think it’ll put a crack in their atheism.” If someone is looking for answers because why bad things happen to good people so to speak; why tragedy occurs it’s going to give them answers. If someone is fearful of death even if they’re a believer and they shouldn’t be it’s going to totally demystify deaf and I have to tell you Dr. Anderson your book is as credible as you are and I believe many… I have such a burden for college students that are getting fed this atheism as if it’s normal that I’ll tell you what I’d like to give this book to every college student in the world. But your book “Appointments with Heaven” and my book “Heaven is Beyond Your Wildest Expectations.” And a special DVD we did at the It’s Supernatural Mentoring Center in Charlotte, North Carolina in which you answer questions about death, and everyone listening has got questions. It is going to take all fear out of death; it’s going to change your whole paradigm for life.
